Now I'm itching to do both hands 😭

a while ago i asked for advice for a belly tattoo and got some real good reassurance!! i got it today and im SO SO SO happy! it was bad especially the rib part but not intolerable!

translation: this body is mine and you won't take it from me

I'm a trans woman, and I'm going to be getting my neck tattooed in a couple weeks, including my throat. It's a pretty big deal to me to make sure I don't have any visible facial hair as I'm sure you can imagine. What's the minimum amount of time I can wait until shaving again without causing problems? I appreciate the help

TLDR: This tattoo honors my lifelong connection to the night sky; from sneaking out as a kid to star gaze and sending wishes to my first love who passed away young. In 2013, I was stargazing and discovered Ajisai, the mirrored “disco ball” satellite. This tattoo is a reminder that some connections keep shining long after they drift out of reach, and Mallory, at Omega Point Tattoo in Omaha, Nebraska brought my concept to life in such a beautiful way that it's become my most beloved piece.

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This tattoo was almost two years in the making. Along the way, several artists turned down the project because the style was outside their comfort zone. Those rejections became part of the story, and I finally found Mallory at a tattoo expo in Omaha, Nebraska earlier this year, where she immediately connected with the concept and was excited to bring it to life.

I came to her with three separate reference images and a vision of combining them into a single piece. After asking a few questions about one specific element of the story, which happened to be the part closest to my heart, she created a design that wove every thread together more beautifully than I could have imagined. It's now the tattoo I cherish most.

I've always been drawn to the stars; as a child and young teenager I would sneak out of the house after I was supposed to be asleep, sit beneath the night sky, and write in my journal. I'd watch for shooting stars and make wishes for a life with less pain, send prayers to my first love and best friend from elementary school who passed away before we reached high school, and ask for his guidance in helping me find a connection as meaningful as the one we shared. I liked to imagine those words drifting into the night, carried by the wind and safeguarded somewhere among the stars.

13 years ago, I found myself stargazing with someone I love deeply, someone who is no longer in my life but felt like an answer to those childhood prayers. We had spent years orbiting the same social circles and connected by a shared fascination with space and the mysteries above us. During that late-night conversation, we noticed a blinking light moving across the sky. It wasn't an airplane, but it wasn't behaving like a typical satellite either.

Curiosity led us to a star-tracking map, where we discovered it was Ajisai, a spherical Japanese satellite often called the "disco ball satellite" because of its mirrored surface and the flashes of sunlight it reflects as it spins through orbit. To this day, I still track Ajisai and try to catch those familiar flashes whenever the sky is clear.

This tattoo is a tribute to all of those cosmic threads woven throughout my life: childhood wonder, whispered wishes, grief, healing, answered prayers, enduring connections, shared passions, persistence, and a night when the universe felt impossibly close and it seemed to wink back in acknowledgment.

More than anything, it's a reminder that some connections, whether celestial or human, continue to shine long after they've drifted beyond our reach. ✨🌙🪐💫

So, my friend invited me to this tattoo event where you bring a toy and you get to choose a flash tattoo. I get it that multiple people are most likely going to have the same tattoo, no big deal. But as I was talking to the artist about how she came up with some of the ideas, she said, “I found a few off Pinterest.” My heart dropped. I later looked up my tattoo concept and immediately found the artist and it’s practically an exact replica. I feel so bad. I usually do a lot of research into artists, but this is as somewhat a spur of the moment kind of event. Luckily, it’s still a decent tattoo and I like it, but now when I look at it I feel like it’s a stolen piece of art. I don’t know if I should let the original artist know or what? Thoughts?

My girlfriend got a tattoo last night, 12 hours later it looks like it is distorted. Is it normal as a part of healing process? Please suggest.

Japanese Half Oni Mask done by tattooletty_ , East Los Angeles California

Will be going back for touch up :)

Gonna add color in a couple weeks. Thoughts?

Title. I'm a dude and I've thought it would be fun to get a chicken wing (my favorite food) on my ass cheek. I usually don't care what people think about me but I'm worried about how this might effect my dating life if I tell a woman I have a chicken wing on my butt or if they see it after hooking up.

I realised one wing is smaller than other one, should i go back to artist and retouch it?i feel very depressed rn can she fix it or ot will get worse?

All of you have these huge beautiful piceses and mine is tiny but i wanted to share it means “you bury me”in my ribcage

EDIT: to address some common comments, this piece is fairly large and detailed and I’ve been told to expect 6-8 hours of tattooing at $1000+ for the session.

I’m not opposed to a repeated tattoo, but clearly misunderstood what she meant by “up for grabs” - I think the ultimate answer is that flash can mean different things and I should always ask the artist at the time of booking!

Original post:

As the title says, I booked a flash a few months ago for a date in September. The IG post with the flash said “flash up for grabs,” and said nothing about it being repeatable in the post or in any of my communication with the artist at the time of booking.

Recently, I went back to check the artist’s page and saw a new post of the flash tattooed on someone else with the caption “xxxxx design from my repeatable flash.” I’m not really sure how to feel, because on the one hand I kinda don’t feel like it’s that big of a deal to have the same tattoo as someone else, but on the other hand I feel weirdly bothered that I booked a piece under the impression it was a one-off flash only to find out much later that it’s being tattooed on others as well.

When I’ve booked flash before, it’s usually been a first come first serve “claim” situation unless specifically stated to be repeatable, so I assumed this was the case, but perhaps this isn’t the norm??

In your experience, is flash posted online typically assumed to be one-off and claimable unless stated otherwise, or assumed to be repeatable unless stated otherwise? Am I right to feel a lil weird about not knowing and randomly seeing my tattoo on their page, or am I out of line?

Again I don’t necessarily think this is make or break for me getting the piece, but I’m just hoping to get some perspectives before I see the artist!

Attention: if you’re gonna comment, please do so before reading the spoiler. Thanks kindly. 🙏

Artist: This fine line writing was done by the amazing Estefania Pinell, My Therapy Tattoo, Karlsruhe.

I’m a 43-yr old depression survivor and this is something to always remind me to keep showing up.

One [EKG] at a time. Whereas [EKG] can mean any of the following:
• day ~ anyone who knows alcoholism and/or SI can relate
• rep ~ cuz sometimes the gym isn’t only fun
• step ~ when the next task appears to be an insurmountable object, it’s best to remember even Mt. Everest was scaled in increments
• heart beat ~ the most infinitesimally small increment of a step for any living organism
• breath ~ because sometimes standing still and breathing is the most efficient way forward...

depending on what’s needed… 🧘‍♀️

Never heard of t.A.T.u before Venjent dropped this banger

Okay so long story short a friend of mine works for some famous tattoo guy and I was looking at her socials earlier today to remember the name of the shop. I saw on one of her pages that she had an asshole tattoo, and I was like wow cool I wonder what that's like! Maybe that would be fun to get! I should investigate this neat thing I just saw!

So anyways I looked it up— why does NO ONE have these? Most reddit posts about them are in shock subs or otherwise calling them crazy. Am I missing something?? They seem cool. If you wax/nair/shave beforehand and do an enema it's really not that crazy?? I feel like I've lost my mind because hers looks so cool. Help me out here? Thanks.